Amy Bishop gave only glimpses of a violent past and flashes of triple murder charges lying in her future, said a longtime friend who met Bishop in local writer’s group 11 years ago.

Bishop lived in Ipswich, with her husband and children, at 28 Birch Lane from 1999 to 2003.

“The Amy I knew was impulsive, very sweet, very funny and very helpful,” said Hamilton resident Rob Dinsmoor, a freelance science writer and editor. “I’m also learning a lot more about her. Things she never disclosed.”

Bishop, who has a doctorate with a specialty in molecular biology, is charged in the shooting deaths of three fellow professors at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Ala., over the weekend.

Dinsmoor said Bishop may have been upset at the prospect of not receiving tenure at the university.

Further investigation has connected Bishop to the 1986 shooting death of her brother, 18, in 1986 and a failed letter-bomb incident at Harvard University in 1993 when she was a doctoral candidate there.

Bishop, whose parents still live in Ipswich, but aren’t talking to the media, was never charged in either incident.

During the years in which he knew the 45-year-old assistant professor, Dinsmoor said Bishop wrote three novels and multiple short stories.

One novel was about growing up in Belfast during Northern Ireland’s civil war; a second was about a female CIA operative; and the third was a science-fiction novel in which Bishop used her science expertise.

“She was always very good at writing about violence,” said Dinsmoor.

At the same time she was pumping out novels and short stories, Bishop was conducting research into nerve-cell regeneration and into a computer built with living cells.

She had just started a fledgling company to further pursue her research and develop marketable products.

Dinsmoor also describes a woman who was willful and opinionated: “When she thought she was right, she wouldn’t back down.”

For all her imagination and brilliance, Bishop appears to have had trouble getting along with her Birch Lane neighbors, now hunkered down and hiding from the press camped out on their street.

In earlier interviews, before the media’s full-court press, neighbors had little nice to say about Bishop, and it appears Bishop had little nice to say about them when she lived in Ipswich.

“I got the impression it was an insular neighborhood,” said Dinsmoor. “She was always complaining about loudness and unruly kids. I got the idea from her they kind of ganged up on her. I got the sense she found them difficult to reason with.”

Ipswich Police report six incidents in which Bishop called them.

Five of the calls involved noise, mostly concerning neighborhood kids operating dirt bikes in their own yards.

Page 2 of 2 - One call involved a report of her children not coming home on time.

Despite violence erupting in her past, Bishop was never charged with a crime.

Braintree Police ruled Bishop’s brother’s death an accident, but a missing police report on the death has police in the town questioning the department’s handling of the investigation.

A police investigation into the letter bomb resulted in no charges.

Dinsmoor met Bishop in 1999 through the writer’s group and kept up a friendship with her and her family, husband James Anderson and their four children — three daughters and one son — ranging in age from preteen to 18.

“They are very nice, very fun kids. That’s what makes this all the more unsettling. I already sent a card to the family,” said Dinsmoor, who last contacted Bishop two weeks ago when she said she was upset about the prospect of not receiving tenure at the university.

“I think that was the main thing,” said Dinsmoor. “Not getting tenure at the University of Alabama was very big. She left for Alabama for the chance at a tenured position. There were also financial issues.”

However, Bishop’s research into the regeneration of damaged nerve cells and into a “living computer” had spawned a fledgling company backed by investors.

The company would likely have eased financial concerns and allowed her to continue her research, Dinsmoor said.

Bishop’s university Web page indicates she was researching the use of nitric oxide as a way jumpstart damaged nerve cells in the spinal cord, and also researching the use of neurons in computer construction.

“My laboratory’s goal will be to continue in our effort to develop a neural computer, the Neuristor, using living neurons,” writes Bishop on her Web page, which records she published three papers on her work in professional journals in 2009.

“She had a startup company she had investors in,” said Dinsmoor. “So she had a promising avenue that way. That’s why this is so surprising and tragic.”